I'm considering buying Poser PRO as an upgrade for my Poser 7. 

Can anyone comment on Poser PRO for me.  Is there a greater ease of animation and quicker more complex rendering ability with Poser PRO ?   I have a brand new computer with Vista 64 bit OS, NVIDIA GeForce w/500M dedicated, QUAD processor, and 8 gigs of RAM.  I think I'm ready to go  :)

BUT is Poser PRO worth the $250 for an upgrade?  Will I experience higher quality renders?
Will complex animations be easier?
Will all my Poser Characters work with it?

THANKS

As someone else said in a much earlier post, PoserPro is more of a side grade then an upgrade.  It essentially has the same features as Poser 7 plus a couple of other items under the hood.  Gamma correction is one of them.  I would suggest that you visit Smith-Micro and read the specs on the program to help you make a decision.  If you follow other threads here at the forum, there are definitely some issues which others have two-cents worth or advice, tips and opinions.  Everything that works in Poser 7 will work in Pro 

The biggest advantage to you will be the 64 bit backgrund renderer, which renders much faster then the standard one in most cases.

It varies, but in some cases, I'd seen a 40% increase in render speed.

There are also many threads here about poser pro.. snoop around some at all the things that have already been posted.

It depends too on your workflow. The background renderer letss you work on something else while its rendering and 64 bit means more memory available and should mean easier to do larger images.  As any software review the specs at smith micro and decide if the cost is worth while to you.

thanks, do you do animation? , I did snoop around before posting this but could not find much on the benefits, mainly "rendering speed and animation", which Poser PRO's people say is much better.  You're the first one to state it renders faster, that sells me in itself :)  but they also say that they're set ups for animation is much easier and better. 

Not sure what version you are using, but it also supports render nodes on additional systems on your network as well.

You could use your old system to help render animation frames.

Quote - The biggest advantage to you will be the 64 bit backgrund renderer, which renders much faster then the standard one in most cases.

It varies, but in some cases, I'd seen a 40% increase in render speed.

There are also many threads here about poser pro.. snoop around some at all the things that have already been posted.

Don't forget gamma correction that doesn't cause color washout. It's makes a world of difference.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2757170

For me, Poser Pro was worth the sidegrade when it was on sale.  The background renderer is much faster.  I had a scene that took around 25 minutes to render in Poser 7, Poser Pro rendered it in 2 minutes.  I am not sure why there was that much of a speed up; but it did definately speed up!

As to the render nodes, good luck getting it to work.  I have yet to get it working, and no one knows why.

Do you have a dual core or quadcore processor? Are you running a 64-bit operating system? Having either or both of those will significantly reduce render times when using the external renderer. To get the performance benefit from those features, you have to use the external renderer though, because the main Poser Pro executable is still a single threaded 32-bit application.

Be aware that there's Poser Pro and Poser Pro Base.
Poser Pro Base does not have the PoserFusion plugins for 3DS Max, Maya and Lightwave.
Poser Pro Base does not have full-featured COLLADA export
Poser Pro Base is limited to a render network of 3 machines.
For the rest, Poser Pro and Poser Pro Base are identical.

If you don't need PoserFusion or COLLADA and don't plan to render on more than 3 machines at a time, Poser Pro Base is a better deal at $100 less.

From personal experience running Poser Pro on a quad core with 8 GB of RAM under XP Pro 64 bit - renders are not really faster, but you can render more complex scenes than under Poser 7 - which already could render far more complex scenes than Poser 6.

For example, I've been able to render scenes with 15 figures, all with hires textures and strand based hair, at 1600x1200 resolutions in Poser Pro. Forget about that in P7 or earlier.

The external renderer being 64-bit and thus able to address memory beyond the 4GB limit of 32-bit software is a definite advantage. The more complex the scene, the bigger advantage there is to using Poser Pro.

BUT is Poser PRO worth the $250 for an upgrade? Will I experience higher quality renders?
Will complex animations be easier?
Will all my Poser Characters work with it?

Don't forget there's Poser Pro Base also. If you're not going to export to other 3D applications such as Cinema4D, Lightwave and 3D Studio Max then you don't need to pay $250 for the sidegrade, you can buy Poser Pro Base which is $149.

All of your character should work fine, I haven't come across any problems. I can't comment on any of the newest generation DAZ characters (M4 & V4) since I don't use them.

As for the higher quality renders the simple answer is no you will not. If you can't produce high quality renders with P7 at the moment then you most likely will not be able to do so with Poser Pro.  High quality renders are related to the skills of the user and they don't change with an upgrade.  Most people using Poser (regardless which version) never achieve high quality renders while Poser is very capable of putting them out. Unless you mean something else with higher quality renders.

You're the first one to state it renders faster, that sells me in itself :)

You must have missed a lot of Proser Pro threads, since in many of them various users have commented on how Poser Pro (even on a 32bit system) renders faster then it's predecessors.
 

missed threads?  probably
HQ as in more complicated, more characters, objects able to use smooth polygons, etc
thanks

Just like to ad ..Poser Pro is not a Pro version of Poser 7
Poser Pro has the number of POSER 10 .. not 7

And i have it ... installed it ..but still use poser 6 for everything .. and only for the speedy renders i
load the files into PPro for rendering...

*"objects able to use smooth polygons..."
*I assume you refer to the ballooning of objects when you enable polygon smoothing in Poser 5 or higher.
That is caused by the way the objects are modeled. Poser 6 and later have a settable threshold for when to smoothe and when not to smoothe, you can find it in the object properties palette.

Well-built Poser figures and props take the smoothing capabilities of Poser into account, and either load with polygon smoothing turned off (for objects with sharp edges), sensible numbers for the smoothing threshold, and, since Poser 7, smoothing groups.
There is no "magic fix". You either fix it by hand (and I suggest saving the fixed object back to the library so you don't have to do it time and again), or you live with it.

By the way, polygon smoothing in Pro is exactly the same as in Poser 7.

HQ as in more complicated, more characters, thanks
 

Provided you have the memory to handle it, the answer is yes. Since the rendering engine is 64bit now and you can use the rendering queue outside of Poser, windows can assign unlimited memory to the rendering engine, so in theory only the sky is the limit.

Quote - BUT is Poser PRO worth the $250 for an upgrade? Will I experience higher quality renders?
Will complex animations be easier?
Will all my Poser Characters work with it?

All of your character should work fine, I haven't come across any problems. I can't comment on any of the newest generation DAZ characters (M4 & V4) since I don't use them.

 

I have Poser Pro and V4 and M4 work just fine for me.  Plus Poser Pro seems to be very
stable.  I can't recall the last time it crashed, if ever. 

I also like that I can use the queue manager to  render an animation with another old computer
I have and not tie up my main machine.

You have no new animation tools in poser pro
you get the basic same graph editor and dope sheet  we have had since poser4
with some new layering system that i read is not much to get excited about.

Link to the poser pro website pdf on using animation layers:

http://www.poserpro.net/King_Tut/animation/img/animation_layers.pdf

exporting to openEXR format in Poser Pro has been very valuable to me.

I also have seen the speedup of renders due to the 64-bit render engine.

::::: Opera ::::::

What other programs use that format? Never heard of it till now.

Rendering out to openEXR format means you are saving 32 bit information in the channels. When you open the file in Photoshop, this is recognized. You can then attack the image with "Channel Mixer" and "Exposure/Gamma" controls that allow a brilliant, subtle variety of tweaking. Once you get the color and lightness channels and gamma correction adjusted as desired, you then "Tone Map" it back to normal 8-bit format, where all the other filters and adjustments can be made.

It's like a brightness/contrast slider on steroids.

One of the major time savers for me is this: I have to perform less fussing in Poser to get the lighting/colors perfect when I know I have that much power in post processing.

If it is an animation, as usual you can set up the adjustments as an Action and apply the correction to every frame in an Image Sequence.

::::: Opera :::::

I never realised that potential! Thanks for updating me on that!

openEXR is very useful for true HDR photomanipulation for the same reasons that operaguy listed above. Conventional image file formats are only 16 or 24-bit and can't contain the the full dynamic range that Poser can render and Poser will basically chop off this wider dynamic range without any input from you. If you export in openEXR format, you can tweak the levels to what you like before saving in a conventional format.

Quote - Do you have a dual core or quadcore processor? Are you running a 64-bit operating system? Having either or both of those will significantly reduce render times when using the external renderer. To get the performance benefit from those features, you have to use the external renderer though, because the main Poser Pro executable is still a single threaded 32-bit application.

i have a dualcore pc with a radeon x1600 graphics card , 2 gb ram and an intel core 2 processor. i am currently thinking of either building a new pc (quadcore) but now reading this thread, am i right in saying that if - i buy poser pro, install windows xp pro 64 bit version , and maybe throw some extra ram on my computer that will work just as good for quicker rendering times?

Personally, I'd use Vista x64 rather than XP Pro x64, because Windows XP is not natively 64-bit and the conversion of the kernel to 64-bit introduced a fair bit of instability and other issues. While XP may be marginally more efficient than Vista, if you want a 64-bit OS, go with Vista. It has far fewer issues than XP Pro x64.

And you should definitely pick up another 2GB of RAM. It's dirt cheap right now and it will improve render speeds in more complex scenes.

how do i check if my pc is 64 bit? i just went on my desktop , right clicked and went to settings. it only shows 32 bit as highest option. does that mean its only 32 bit? if this is the case, what do i need to do to make my pc 32 bit? is it a new motherboard or a processor?

I beg to differ with JWFokker. XP Pro 64 bit is not built on the XP core, it's built on the Server 2003 64 bit core.
XP 64 bit doesn't have that many instability issues of itself. Driver issues, however, is another matter. Since it's a slimmed down Server 2003 64 bit, it uses drivers for Server 2003 64 bit, and many peripherals (printers, scanners, tablets. cameras) don't have drivers for server OSes.

I prefer XP Pro 64 bit, since it's far leaner and meaner - and faster - than Vista. Then again, I selected my hardware with XP 64 bit in mind, so I don't have driver issues.

Dual core PC - well, it depends on what kind of dual core. If it's a Pentium D series dual core, upgrading to a quad core will significantly increase performance. But if you have an Intel E series dual core (Core 2 Duo), the performance increase will be less - but you can use the same mainboard and RAM.

Keep in mind that buying a standalone version of Vista is expensive! An OEM version can only be sold with accompanying hardware (but two modules of RAM would qualify), and costs less than half of the retail version of Vista.
Same goes for XP Pro 64 bit.

Don't expect the dual core to perform as well as a nicely spec'ed quad core, just because you upgrade to Poser Pro and a 64 bit OS, plus extra RAM. The quad will still be significantly faster at rendering.
Buying a quad for Poser 6 is completely useless, however. Poser 6 is pure single threaded and will only use 1 core.

Here's how you find it:

-right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties;
-choose the tab Hardware and click the button Device Manager;
-expand the Processors node and right-click one of the two processors that show up - choose Properties;
-go to the Details page.

If the text in the "Value" box contains "EM64T" you have a 64 bit CPU - and also a 64 bit capable mainboard. Which means you can install a 64 bit OS.

You're nitpicking. XP is NT 5.1, Server 2004/XP Pro x64 is NT 5.2. It is the same kernel, simply updated with 64-bit shoehorned in. And performance benchmarks don't bear out your evaluation as "far leaner and meaner - and faster - than Vista". It is MARGINALLY faster, as I previously wrote. Also, he has a Core 2 processor. He mentioned it specifically in his post. But the cost of upgrading to a quadcore is significant. No one said a dualcore would perform as well as a quadcore either.

Quote - how do i check if my pc is 64 bit? i just went on my desktop , right clicked and went to settings. it only shows 32 bit as highest option. does that mean its only 32 bit? if this is the case, what do i need to do to make my pc 32 bit? is it a new motherboard or a processor?

If you have a Core 2 processor, it is 64-bit capable.

Quote - I beg to differ with JWFokker. XP Pro 64 bit is not built on the XP core, it's built on the Server 2003 64 bit core.
XP 64 bit doesn't have that many instability issues of itself. Driver issues, however, is another matter. Since it's a slimmed down Server 2003 64 bit, it uses drivers for Server 2003 64 bit, and many peripherals (printers, scanners, tablets. cameras) don't have drivers for server OSes.

I prefer XP Pro 64 bit, since it's far leaner and meaner - and faster - than Vista. Then again, I selected my hardware with XP 64 bit in mind, so I don't have driver issues.

Dual core PC - well, it depends on what kind of dual core. If it's a Pentium D series dual core, upgrading to a quad core will significantly increase performance. But if you have an Intel E series dual core (Core 2 Duo), the performance increase will be less - but you can use the same mainboard and RAM.

Keep in mind that buying a standalone version of Vista is expensive! An OEM version can only be sold with accompanying hardware (but two modules of RAM would qualify), and costs less than half of the retail version of Vista.
Same goes for XP Pro 64 bit.

Don't expect the dual core to perform as well as a nicely spec'ed quad core, just because you upgrade to Poser Pro and a 64 bit OS, plus extra RAM. The quad will still be significantly faster at rendering.
Buying a quad for Poser 6 is completely useless, however. Poser 6 is pure single threaded and will only use 1 core.

mine is an intel core 2 duo. so what will i need to do to get my comp up to spec? i really apprciate this by the way.

Quote - Here's how you find it:

-right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties;
-choose the tab Hardware and click the button Device Manager;
-expand the Processors node and right-click one of the two processors that show up - choose Properties;
-go to the Details page.

If the text in the "Value" box contains "EM64T" you have a 64 bit CPU - and also a 64 bit capable mainboard. Which means you can install a 64 bit OS.

 i just done all that, and it doesnt say any of that. so i need a new board and everything then. might aswell just get me a new pc.

You can download a free application like Everest Home Edition that will tell you the make and model of all of your hardware and its properties. If you decide to use Everest, go to the Motherboard tab and then again to the Motherboard sub-section and look for the Front Side Bus Properties and the Bus Width. That will tell you if your motherboard is 32-bit or 64-bit capable. Odds are good that if it came with a Core 2 Duo, it is 64-bit capable. Similarly for your CPU, you can go to the Motherboard tab and the CPUID sub-section and look for the 64-bit x86 Extension (AMD64, Intel 64) box to be checked and marked Supported.

SIW is also an excellent free system information utility, and is very easy to use.

http://www.gtopala.com/